Juliet Stevenson returns to the Young Vic in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days.

Directed by Natalie Abrahami, Olivier Award-winning stage and screen actress Juliet Stevenson takes on of one the great roles in Samuel Beckett’s surreal masterpiece Happy Days.

Happy Days plays for a strictly limited run at the Young Vic theatre from 13 February 2015 til 21 March 2015.

STORY

Trapped in a scorched wasteland with her detached husband, Winnie keeps despair at bay with ritual, song and her trusty lipstick. But is our buoyant, hopeful heroine in denial of her ever-diminishing world?

50 years on this powerful tale of resilience – and of a woman’s ability to survive against overwhelming odds – still shocks and amazes.

Following two highly successful sold-out runs in London in 2012 at the Jermyn Street and Arts Theatres, Trevor Nunn’s critically acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett’s radio play ALL THAT FALL starring Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon will have a limited run at 59E59 Theaters in New York from Tuesday 5 November to Sunday 8 December 2013.

Specially commissioned by the BBC as a radio play, ALL THAT FALL was first broadcast in 1957. Set in rural Ireland, the play follows Mrs Rooney (Eileen Atkins), struggling under her aged, rheumatic, large frame, on her way to meet her blind and ill-tempered husband (Michael Gambon) off the train. Along the way, she encounters Christy with his dung cart, old Tyler on his bicycle, Mr Slocum, a racecourse clerk, and Miss Fitt, a pious spinster. At once chilling and compassionate, intimate and expansive, ALL THAT FALL offers an inimitably idiosyncratic and at times hilarious perspective on loss, grief and old age.

Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon will be joined in the Off Broadway production by Ruairi Conaghan, Catherine Cusack and Frank Grimes from the original London productions, with further casting to be announced.

ALL THAT FALL by Samuel Beckett is directed by Trevor Nunn, with sound by Paul Groothuis and design by Cherry Truluck.

ALL THAT FALL by Samuel Beckett will be presented at 59E59 Theaters by Richard Darbourne Limited and Jermyn Street Theatre in association with Gene David Kirk.

Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon star in All That Fall by Samuel Beckett, directed by Trevor Nunn. 5 STARS – The Guardian.

Following a hugely successful run at the Jermyn Street Theatre, All That Fall transfers to the Arts Theatre. Originally written as a radio play, the Becektt Estate has finally allowed the play to be performed on stage on the proviso that it is presented as if the audience are watching a group of actors recording the piece for radio. Eileen Atkins and Michael Gambon perform with scripts in their hands, there are visible microphones, and a host of sound effects, ranging from farmyard animals to hissing steam locomotives.

It’s an eclectic mix of shows that are opening this week in the West End, as the autumn season of new productions begins apace. From Wonder Woman to Michael Gambon via Noel Coward and Sebastian Faulks, there’s something for everyone.

Gareth Gates in Les Mis

On Tuesday 14 September, Les Miserables returns to the Barbican Theatre, where it all began 25 years ago. A brand new production of Boublil and Schonberg’s legendary musical has been touring the UK to celebrate its 25th anniversary and completes its run at the Barbican – but for only 22 performances. The show features a dynamic young cast including Gareth Gates.

Design for Living

Noel Coward is never far from the West End, and Wednesday 15 September sees the opening night of Design for Living at the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo. Anthony Page directs Coward’s 1932 comedy about the complicated three-way relationship between two men and a woman. The play stars Tom Burke (Telstar), Andrew Scott (Lennon Naked) and Lisa Dillon (Cranford) and runs until 27 November.

On the same day Krapp’s Last Tape starts previews at the Duchess Theatre starring one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, Michael Gambon. The Dublin Gate Theatre transfer of Samuel Beckett’s classic enjoyed rave reviews at the Gate directed by Michael Colgan. The 50 minute show is playing two shows a night, keeping Mr Gambon nicely occupied.

Lynda Carter

On Friday 17 September the fabulous Lynda Carter, aka Wonder Women, pops to town for two shows of her Lynda Carter: At Last solo sing-fest. Best known to millions as TV superhero Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter: At Last is a musical evening to celebrate her recent solo album. Following dates in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, Lynda Carter will appear in London on 17 and 18 September 2010 at the Garrick Theatre.

Also on Friday, the Chichester Festival Theatre’s sell-out production of Yes, Prime Minister starts previews at the Gielgud Theatre starring Henry Goodman and David Haig. The original writers of the BBC series, Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn, have reunited for this hilarious 30th anniversary production, promising much topical wit and political spin-doctoring: Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby are back and this time to face the country in financial meltdown!

Ben Barnes and Genevieve O'Reilly, Birdsong

The following day, Saturday 18 September, Trevor Nunn is back in the West End directing Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation of the best-selling Sebastian Faulks novel Birdsong. The play starts previews at the Comedy Theatre starring British movie star Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia), Nicholas Farrell, Iain Mitchell, Genevieve O’Reilly and Lee Ross, and tells the moving story of one man’s journey through an all consuming love affair and into the horror of the First World War.

If theatre mirrors life then you would expect 2009 to be a bad year for the performing arts in London: economic downturns and credit crunches sound like gloomy news for our discretionary entertainment spending. But West End theatre box office figures have kept on going up in recent years, and the huge number of new productions sailing into town during 2009 could mean that Theatreland manages to buck the trend.

THE GREAT REVIVAL

The RSC, National Theatre, Donmar and Old Vic dominated straight drama in the West End in 2008, and they haven’t finished yet. Big hitters coming to town include Judi Dench and Rosamund Pike in the Donmar in the West End’s Madame de Sade at the Wyndhams; Jude Law offering us his, hopefully fighting fit, Hamlet; Gillian Anderson in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Rachel Weisz in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Donmar Warehouse; Helen Mirren making her return to the London stage in Phaedra at the National Theatre; and a number of crowd-pleasing revivals at the Old Vic, no more so than Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel’s hugely successful play starring Andrea Corr, and Sam Mendes directing Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, both featuring Ethan Hawke, Simon Russell Beale and Sinead Cusack.

STAR POWER

Other stars shimmying into town include Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket, Ken Stott and Hayley Atwell in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York’s, heavy-hitter Pete Postlethwaite as King Lear at the Young Vic, and Antony Sher giving us his Prospero in the RSC’s The Tempest. The Gavin and Stacey phenomenon continues to roll on, as we see Joe Orton’s delicious romp Entertaining Mr Sloane at the Trafalgar Studios starring Gavin himself, Matthew Horne, alongside Imelda Staunton; whilst Gavin’s onscreen Mum Alison Steadman plays a barking Leeds housewife in Alan Bennett’s Enjoy at the Gielgud Theatre.

NEW PLAYS

The sharp eyed amongst you will notice that all of these plays are revivals rather than new work, keeping audiences firmly in their comfort zones. That said, new plays may be thin on the ground but not absent all together, with the National offering up Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice, following two lovers across four centuries, and Samuel Adamson’s Mrs Affleck set in the 1950s. Jez Butterworth has two new plays in pre-production, with comedy Parlour Song at the Almeida and Jerusalem at the Royal Court. Also at the Royal Court, Mark Ravenhill will bring his new play Over There. Plus Hollywood man of the moment James McAvoy is to star in Richard Greenberg’s acclaimed play Three Days of Rain at the Apollo, and at The Old Vic Richard Dreyfuss headlines the world premiere of American playwright Joe Sutton’s new play Complicit, directed by Kevin Spacey.

“BASED ON A FILM”

In musical theatre, 2009 promises to be a year of great big fabulous and familiar shows, surely enough to see us through the dark times? And it’s no coincidence that many of them are based on hugely successful films.

Oliver! will be well and truly steaming ahead through 2009 at the Drury Lane Theatre Royal with Rowan Atkinson and Jodie Prenger; La Cage Aux Folles will continue camping it up at the Playhouse but with Graham Norton taking over from Douglas Hodge; and at the Adelphi Theatre Lee Mead will bow out of Joseph to be replaced by Gareth Gates.

Jason Donovan will be donning the wigs and lip gloss to take us on an Australian power-mince in Priscilla Queen of the Desert at the Palace Theatre. And Sister Act at the London Palladium will be doing its best to recreate the fun of the film, helped along by Whoopi Goldberg as co-producer. And not quite a musical but as good as, Calendar Girls the stage play will up the naked flesh quotient in the West End, starring Patricia Hodge and Lynda Bellingham at the Noel Coward Theatre.

Also in musicals-land the power of reality TV continues to wield its power, with Gareth Gates going into Joseph at the Adelphi Theatre, the X-factor’s Niki Evans continuing in Blood Brothers at the Phoenix, Jodie Prenger in Oliver at the Drury Lane, and Ray Quinn and Danny Bayne in Grease – joined for a limited time by the legendary Jimmy Osmond.

KIDS RULE

Kids should also see a good year in 2009 with an enormous live theatrical production of Walking with Dinosaurs coming to a stadium near you, and War Horse transfers from its successful run at the National Theatre to the New London Theatre.